Lillian Pachter's mandel brot

It’s raining.  It doesn’t matter that it’s also more than 90 degrees outside. It is a gray, gloomy, stay-in-bed sort of day. The only thing to do? Bake, of course. On days like this, I head for the cookie sheets and the sugar jar. And I tend to make old favorites; somehow trying out new recipes seems like a sunny-day activity. So I’m making mandel brot, which was my grandmother’s specialty and therefore a treat that I’ve been eating since I was in utero. For the uninitiated, mandel brot……are the twice-baked cookies popularized in Ashkenazi Jewish cooking (mandel means almond and brot means bread in Yiddish). They bear more than a passing resemblance to Italian biscotti, probably because once upon a time a large population of Jews lived in Italy’s Piedmont region where biscotti is said to have originated. Biscotti is a very old recipe, one thought to have been around since the Roman Empire. It probably appealed to the Jews because it’s made with flour, sugar, eggs, and oil—not butter—and thus is pareve, or kosher for the Sabbath. The Jews of the Piedmont likely appropriated the recipe from their neighbors and took it with them to Eastern Europe. Both biscotti and mandel brot are noted for their distinctive, addictive crunchiness. My grandmother prided herself on her delicious mandel brot, and used to mail me shoeboxes full of it when I was in college; one time my roommates devoured an entire shipment before I got home from class. My grandmother died in 2008, after a long and happy life and a chance to meet her great-grandchildren, and her mandel brot live on with us…especially on dreary old rainy days.  See if it cheers you up, too.

Lillian Pachter’s Mandel Brot

4 cups flour, sifted

1 ½ cups sugar

2 heaping teaspoons baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon grated orange zest (optional)

4 eggs

¼ cup orange juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cups oil

Preheat oven to 350.

Sift all dry ingredients into bowl. Make a well in the center. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, gently beat sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, oil, and orange juice together.

Gradually pour the liquid ingredients into the well in the dry ingredient bowl. Gently combine with a large wooden spoon, or, preferably, with your hands. The dough should all come together quickly. It is a very sticky dough; you will have to add a little more flour when handling it and turning it out. Put lots of flour on your hands.

If you want to add nuts, crush ½ cup of almonds, finely, and mix in now. Also raisins, chocolate chips, or whatever else your grandmother might have added in; or nothing at all.

After the dough is together divide into thirds.

Generously grease cookie sheet with vegetable oil.

Take a third of the dough and form it into a long log that stretches the length of the cookie sheet. Do this with the other two portions, so that there are three very long strips now. Dust the tops of each with a little cinnamon and a little sugar.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

When warm, slice each log on the bias to form pieces. Place the slices on cookie sheet and return to oven for about 5 to 8 minutes more. Cool for 15 minutes. Eat immediately.

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